


the random frantic action that we take

by Rhi



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-17
Updated: 2009-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:12:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhi/pseuds/Rhi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a flashfic request by eudaimon: <i>James T. Kirk (Reboot) - "My love, the Astronaut".</i>  It really all does just go back to George Kirk and the Narada.</p><p>Contains slightly disturbing imagery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the random frantic action that we take

**Author's Note:**

> From the [Amanda Palmer track](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O6GqCwjh-k), of course.

Jim Kirk's dreams are always in color; and ever since his memories begin, they have been often sunbursts and stardust, light and fire in shades of orange and yellow against a black field. Destruction, darkness.

A lightning storm in space.

Humans call it genetic memory, the telepathic races empathic transference, skeptics implanted memory. Regardless, something's been passed on to him in the trauma of his birth, and Jim can't shake it. He's done therapy, voluntary and court-ordered, sat on plenty of couches, took pills, tried to get himself fixed, but it seems like his father's legacy is to completely fuck up any chance he might have of a normal life.

He still dreams in color, of destruction, of his father saving them all in a sudden, snuffed-out instant. Jim is him, that day: the perfect light overcoming him, painless, almost like an orgasm, sadness but complete and utter triumph and satisfaction. And then the stars.

He never asked to be his father, tries his damnedest not to be. He knows the dream is wrong; every time, he wakes up and thrusts his face into his pillow to hide the silent scream. It's why he never stays overnight, even when he's hunting for something, anything else that might possibly wipe this shit out, make him whole again. Fucking hard against a wall, being drunk off his ass, getting the worst knuckle sandwich of his life--it only lasts a second or two, but in those times he's free of it, it's burned away.

Jim never asks his mother why she went back. He doesn't have to.

On the night Pike talks to him, he stands in a cornfield outside of Riverside, hands in the pockets of his jacket, still able to taste the bitter tang of drying blood. Iowa's still the middle of bumfuck nowhere, and on a clear night, even with the light pollution, you can see forever. Out past the LEOs, the brilliance of the moon settlements, there is black field of space and stars, and the remembered dream burns Jim's retinas away to ash.

He stands there, trembling for a moment, and makes up his mind. If this doesn't work, he decides, then there's nothing else that will.

It feels like he's falling. But at least that's a different kind of nightmare.


End file.
